


Imposter Syndrome

by melissfiction



Category: Solar Opposites
Genre: Dancing, Evil Clone, Love Confession, M/M, One-Shot, Pre-Earth, Romance, Shapeshifter, imposter syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:40:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27416665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melissfiction/pseuds/melissfiction
Summary: Korvo and Terry deal with imposter syndrome in their own ways."Shoot him! He's the evil clone!"
Relationships: Korvotron "Korvo"/Terry (Solar Opposites)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 37





	Imposter Syndrome

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be my Halloween project, but it's not actually that spooky lol. The song in this fic is Fly Me To The Moon by Frank Sinatra.

Korvo and Terry assured their replicants that the mission was easy, but the truth was that there’s only a 13% success rate. Outer space was exactly that—empty space that happened to have planets and stars and moons interspersed. Even if there were infinite viable planets, they didn’t have access to all of them. A Shlorpian ship could only go so fast. Then, there was the issue of the Galactic Federation constantly expanding their territory, their limited resources, and the possibility that they might get murdered by aliens. Some days, failure seemed inevitable, but around the replicants, it was all cheer and bluffs. 

It was the adult’s job to lie. A moral obligation, even. The earliest lie Korvo remembered being told was about the weeping willow tree he used to do math homework under. He used to comb his fingers through the vines, or sometimes yank them or violently rip the leaves off of them because he was young and nonsensical violence expressed his excess energy in a way that seemed to itch an intrinsic need. He cringed at the memory of him beating the bark off of the trunk with a fallen branch. Back then, trees were just trees. He grew up and realized he had been assaulting some poor Shlorpian’s dead body. He was glad nobody told him earlier, or else he would have never had a normal childhood playing outdoors. 

Korvo was certain Jesse and Yumyulack would be grateful, too. Terry went the extra mile and never told Jesse what the mission was. A bit extreme, and awfully inconvenient whenever Korvo had to mention the mission, but Korvo respected the decision. Ignorance is bliss. It was important for the replicants to have hope. Korvo wouldn’t wish the misery of knowing that they were flying through space in their own cold, metal coffin on anyone. They’ve been searching for a new planet for months now, meaning that Korvo hadn’t been able to sleep soundly in months. 

He had a recurring nightmare where Terry and the replicants staged a mutiny against him. It started off like a normal day on the ship (or night or afternoon or evening because they weren’t in any real time zone). That was the part that scared him the most—how  _ real  _ the start of the dream felt. Every detail was crisp: the background whirr of the engine, the harsh white fluorescent lights, and even the frigid air that persisted under his skin and seeped right into his core. 

Terry was always the first to turn on him. He would say, “You really don’t know what you’re doing, do you?”, and he would say it as if he suspected it from the second they met. Korvo always froze up, like the dark secret he had been trying to hide for so long was finally exposed. Some desperate denials would come in between, with the replicants being devastated that their team leader had turned out to be so pathetic, and they would try to throw him out into space. He always woke up before he died, though. He supposed his subconscious mind couldn’t fathom the ebullism, the asphyxiation, the boiling of his eyes and tongue, but betrayal was too easy to recreate. 

Korvo felt as if he were beginning that same nightmare again. He was leaning against Terry’s chair while they both silently stared into the expanse of space. Everything felt faraway. Liminal. He could hardly feel his own body. The controls on the dashboard looked almost cartoonish, as if they were props on a movie set. Even the stars seemed duller than usual. He checked the time on his watch, still set to Shlorpian time, just as an excuse to test that he still had control over his limbs. It was already 2PM. He couldn’t remember what he did when he woke up. He may as well have been a mere character in a story conjured into his bleak scenario, at the mercy of the storyteller’s whims and fancies. He certainly didn’t feel like he was in control, anymore. 

“Korvo,” Terry whispered. 

He waited for those awful words.  _ You really don’t know what you’re doing, do you?  _ Maybe this time, he would come clean and admit it: he didn’t deserve to survive the meteor. He wasn’t sure who he was trying to protect, anymore. It was only a matter of time before Terry exposed him as a fraud, a court jester parading around in the robes of a king pretending that he had the divine right to lead. 

“Korvo, can I talk to you? In private?” 

“Uh. Sure.” 

Terry walked him to the galley and commanded the ship’s supercomputer to lock the door behind them. Korvo felt like a prisoner being led to the gallows. Logically, it was probably just something about the mission. Maybe Terry wanted to know how close the nearest planet was, but maybe that was worse than finally ending the whole farce. Korvo didn’t have any updates, no deus ex machinas up his sleeve. He knew just as much as Terry did about the mission progress. 

Korvo stood there and waited for Terry to call him out on his poor act. Almost prayed for it. 

“Let’s give up on the mission,” Terry declared. 

“W-What?” 

“Let’s give up,” Terry repeated. 

“W-W-We can’t!” 

Korvo was unnerved by how resolute Terry sounded. He was afraid Terry would be able to convince him, because he was wrong. They  _ could  _ give up on the mission. It was easy to give up. The only defense he could think of was that it could leave a bad influence on the replicants. It could give the replicants low self-esteem. Anything is supposed to be possible if you just worked hard enough, right? 

“Who’s gonna tell on us? The government blew up, remember? We’re  _ free _ .” 

Korvo didn’t feel free without the protective gaze of the Shlorpian government. He felt lost and doomed. As team leader, he was the highest authority on the ship, yet he felt immediately overpowered by his evacuation partner. The betrayal from his nightmares was fresh in his mind. “T-Terry, don’t be ridiculous. We need a new Shlorp.” Or, maybe it was the way Terry always lingered so close to him that intimidated him, how he always commanded so much space. The gap between them existed in centimeters. 

Terry grasped Korvo by the shoulders. “We can just move to any new planet! Start over with nothing to look back on—no mission, no Shlorp, no impossible expectations. Think of it, Korvo. You and me, settling down in a nice house, raising our replicants together, eating exotic alien foods and not worrying about any stupid mission. We could be happy!” It was a Pathos-ridden plea set aflame by passionate escapism. 

“I…” Korvo looked away. The difference between the real Terry and his nightmare version was that the real one talked with  _ we _ ’s. Korvo never had to think of a “we” before, but Terry insisted on it. As if they were a couple. Like, actual romantic partners and not just two random Shlorpians assigned to each other arbitrarily through a lottery system. He liked hearing Terry’s blueprint for a better life. Terry was the first one in his life to ever include him, to ever propose an optimistic worldview that revolved around him. He couldn’t believe in it, though, the same way he couldn’t believe in heaven and unicorns and a lovesick future of domestic bliss and bouquets of roses. “I’m already happy.” 

Terry smiled wryly. He tightened his grasp on Korvo’s shoulders. “You really don’t believe that, do you?” 

The prophecy was fulfilled. Korvo was a resident in a transparent closet that Terry saw through as easily as a freshly cleaned window. But the nightmare continued. Korvo was seen through, he always had been seen through, but he didn’t have the relief of being ejected out of the ship into cold, dead space to look forward to. He wore invisible threads like a foolish emperor, naked to all. 

He never knew what to say at this part. He thought the paralysis would be less debilitating in reality, without the limitations of his subconscious mind’s puppeteering, but knowing he had the agency to escape the scenario only made it more humiliating the longer he stayed silent. 

Terry could see that their discussion had reached a plateau. He had mercy, unlike the cruel doppelganger Korvo had construed in his mind. He wiped away a tear from Korvo’s eye. Korvo didn’t realize his eyes were wet. He felt too numb. He felt like an unwilling spectator at a freak show starring himself. 

“Well, just think about it,” Terry offered gently. “It doesn’t hurt to think, right?” 

Korvo thought about it. 

He thought about coming home from a late night of work at some biotechnology company to his loving lifemate, who would perk up as soon as he heard the familiar jingling of keys at the front door. Terry would greet him with a kiss, ask about his day at work, and Korvo would prattle off about his incompetent co-workers and complain that he wasn’t making enough. Terry would warm up some leftovers for him and they would sit and talk in the dining room about pop culture trivialities and political tortures. 

Korvo would check in on the replicants’ room, and Jesse would be excited to see him and abandon her schoolwork for a hug while Yumyulack would roll his eyes and pretend that he hadn’t even noticed Korvo had left. The Pupa would be some kind of pet or baby or something in between in this make-believe scenario—that part wasn’t too important. 

And at the end of the night, he and Terry would slip into their shared bed. Terry would be the first to fall asleep while Korvo read a few chapters of a manual, but once his lamp was finally off, he would kiss Terry’s sleeping face goodnight, tuck himself under Terry’s limp arm, and think to himself,  _ I  _ am  _ happy.  _

It did hurt to think of, though. It put butterflies in his stomach, but it also wrenched his heart and forced quiet sobs out of him while he covered his crying face. He preferred his nightmares because when he woke up, the betrayal was gone. Knowing such a sweet lie was exactly that—a lie—made him want to never wake up. Korvo knew he was choosing to be miserable and it made everything worse. 

Terry squeezed Korvo to his chest. “Shhh, it’s okay, it’s okay. I’m here. I’ve got you.” 

Korvo cried harder than when he found out his favorite willow tree was a dead Shlorpian. Sobs wracked his body. Tears soaked into Terry’s robe. He hugged Terry. It was his first time being hugged and it felt foreign, but he couldn’t deny the way his heart fluttered when Terry whispered sweet comforts to him. Korvo tried, desperately, to believe that Terry was here for him. The real Terry. The one who didn’t mind when their hands brushed reaching for the same button and who had a sweet smile and who talked about their future as if they were soulbound. 

But he knew that Terry didn’t need him to live the bright future he imagined. Terry could take Jesse and Yumyulack and ditch him at the next rest stop if he wanted to. Terry could leave him all alone and Korvo wouldn’t be able to stop him. 

* * *

A sudden blare of radio static broke Korvo out of his dissociative spell. 

“Terry!” Korvo yelled. “Don’t mess with that!” 

Terry continued to mess with the radio. “Maybe we can pick up a space radio station?” As he adjusted the frequency of the radio with the right dial, the static morphed into various pitches of white noise. Some frequencies sounded like a high-pitched hissing, others like fingernails scratching a rough surface, but he paused on a frequency with mid-tone electric buzzing and crackling over a hushed roar like an ocean wave crashing against a rocky shore. He turned the dial one degree clockwise and heard a slight ululation in the static, like a garbled voice was straining through the interference to be heard. 

“...  _ taken over… look-alike...”  _

Korvo hurried to shut the radio off. “Th-This isn’t a regular car radio, Terry! It’s for picking up distress signals!” 

“Was that a distress signal, just now?” Yumyulack asked. 

It was, but that was none of their business. Korvo wasn’t going to tell the replicants that they had to ignore all distress signals for their own safety, no matter how brutally the crewmates of another ship were getting murdered. Even if the distress signal was from a little alien girl who just lost her parents to face-snatching leeches. 

“No,” Korvo told his replicant. “That was nothing.” 

“But it sounded like words,” Jesse insisted. 

Korvo shot a death glare at Terry. 

“I didn’t hear anything,” Terry said. “Nothing at all.” 

“We are completely alone out here,” Korvo said. “There is nothing that can survive in this environment besides us, because we have amazing Shlorpian technology and plenty of resources.” He turned to Terry. “Meaning, it is  _ impossible _ to get any music from a ‘space radio station’.” He was baffled by Terry’s thought process. They hadn’t passed a planet in days. It wasn’t as if there were aliens that decided it was a priority to set up talk shows and pop music cesspools to entertain travelers. 

“Aw, c’mon, Korvo,” Terry said. “I was just trying to help the mood. It’s so boring!” 

Korvo got out a toolbox from a cabinet and got to work on uninstalling the radio. They had no use for it. It was meant for communicating with other Shlorpian ships, back in an era where there were enough teams to pair up for missions. Now, their species was critically endangered because the meteor came too suddenly—maybe a planned terrorist attack from an alien planet. There wasn’t enough time for anyone to figure out anything besides an escape plan. With their limited time, all efforts went into investing in the few survivors’ chances. One hundred Shlorpians and their replicants, all sent in random directions with no real plan. Korvo always knew he would be chosen for the mission, being the top-ranked student all throughout his academic career, but nobody anticipated the meteor. 

“Boring is good.” Korvo unscrewed the radio from its holdings and detached it easily. He pried open the top of it, revealing the green motherboard chip as a background to the power input, the speaker output, the demodulator and LCD driver and antenna input and other tedious intricacies. To him, the parts were puzzle pieces. He considered using the scrap parts to upgrade their ray guns. “Boring means nothing bad is happening.” He fetched the ray gun, the regular one that just shoots lasers at monsters and not a funny one with a specific effect on its target, and a few spare white amplification crystals. 

“Boring is depressing!” Terry argued. “What kind of childhood are we trying to provide for our replicants?” He melodramatically waved his arm towards Jesse and Yumyulack, who had been simply sitting silently and staring out into space since they woke up. “They’re going to grow up with no personality and become cold, emotionless robot-zombies without ever knowing what happiness is!” He took Korvo by the shoulders and shook him violently. “Just! Like!  _ You! _ ” 

Korvo shoved Terry off of him. “I-I know what happiness is! And you can’t combine robots and zombies! What’s the point of putting cyborg technology in a dead body? Why not just make a full cyborg at that point? Pick a lane!” 

“Oh yeah?” Terry challenged. “What makes you happy, then?” 

_ You,  _ Korvo wanted to say. “Uh…” He tried to think of something less embarrassing. He liked math, sure, but he hadn’t been up to finding indefinite integrals or using trigonometric identities in weeks. He used to like inventing, but the passion faded away after being overworked on Shlorp as soon as he got his Master’s in electrical engineering. Once, he was a portrait artist, but his old paint tubes dried up when he got too busy with his studies. He was drawing a blank. 

“Oh my god. You’re miserable _ ,  _ aren’t you?” 

“Th-That’s not—shut up!” Korvo couldn’t think of any clever comeback. “Don’t put me on the spot like that! I’m a very happy person!” 

Terry wasn’t fooled for a second. “I’ve never seen you smile.” 

“I smile when you’re not looking,” Korvo lied. 

“You can’t even name one thing that makes you happy?” Yumyulack asked. “What about the satisfaction of shooting down your archnemesis after months of undercover reconnaissance in the Red Lights District?” 

“Wha—no!” Korvo was concerned with how oddly specific that scenario was. 

“What about cute boys?” Jesse asked. 

Korvo glanced at Terry, then quickly looked away. “No.” 

“Cute girls?” Terry suggested. 

“No.” Easy no. 

“The blood gushing out of someone’s stab wounds?” Yumyulack suggested. 

“Yumyulack, what is  _ wrong _ with you?” Korvo shot back. 

“A good book?” Jesse suggested. 

“I don’t read storybooks.” Korvo only read manuals and textbooks and scholarly journal articles. 

“Rainbows? Sunsets? Clean laundry? Singing in the shower? A good sandwich?” Terry suggested, rapid-fire and desperate to elicit a positive response out of Korvo. “None of those things make you happy?” 

Korvo’s temper boiled over. “Shut up! Shut up, all of you! Y-Y-You know what makes me happy? You really wanna know what makes me happy?” He took a tube of superglue and aggressively squeezed the glue onto the antenna input, stuck a couple amplification crystals in it, and slammed the cover back on the radio. “Knowing you’re all safe and sound makes me happy! Waking up and seeing that you’re all alive and well makes me happy!  _ That’s  _ enough to make me happy!” He powered on the radio and turned the right dial until he found a jazzy, jaunty tune with the haunting, vibrato tone of a theremin in the background. There was a steady walking bass line from a deep, plucked string instrument and an energetic rhythm from the bright piano chords. Brassy horns embellished the melody. Korvo, seething with hot blood, glared at Terry. “D-D-Does  _ that _ make you happy?” 

Terry pulled Korvo in for a hug. “Aw, Korvo! You’re so sweet!” 

Jesse joined in. “Group hug!” 

“Yumyulack, join us,” Terry said. He was trying to normalize physical affection so that Jesse and Yumyulack grew up with love and high self-esteem. “That’s an order.” 

“Okay, whatever,” Yumyulack grumbled. He wasn’t as reluctant to join the hug as he let off, though. 

Korvo blushed. Being at the center of the group hug was embarrassing. He didn’t feel he deserved praise for being concerned with the wellbeing of his team. That was the bare minimum. It was literally in his job description. “G-Get off of me… I’m getting claustrophobic.” 

When the hug broke off, Korvo tried to return to his seat. Terry stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Oh, no. You’re going to dance with me.” 

“I-I can’t dance,” Korvo protested. He never had any friends to go to the academy’s prom with. He once tried to ask a certain someone to the prom his senior year, but then he realized the guy had a girlfriend, a hot smokeshow at that, so he ripped up his note and threw the bits into an incinerator. 

“I’ll teach you!” Terry positioned Korvo’s hand on his shoulder and placed his hand at Korvo’s waist. He interlaced his fingers with Korvo’s free hand. “Just follow my lead. Listen to the timing.” He tapped the beat on Korvo’s waist. 

A smooth voice sang from the radio:  _ Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars.  _

Terry led Korvo into a simple side step to the right, a toe tap, a side step to the left, a toe tap, and repeated until Korvo got the hang of it. He wasn’t as light on his feet as Terry, but he knew how to think on his toes. 

_ Let me see what spring is like on, a-Jupiter and Mars.  _

Terry led them into a simple box pattern with the same basic steps. 

_ In other words… hold my hand.  _

They settled into a steady rhythm. Terry smiled at Korvo encouragingly and squeezed Korvo’s hand. The space between them shortened. 

_ In other words… baby, kiss me.  _

A brass swell followed. Terry began to expand their dancing range, leading Korvo throughout the rest of the cockpit. 

_ Fill my heart with song, and let me sing forevermore. You are all I long for, all I worship and adore. _

Terry spun Korvo around twice. He caught Korvo and leaned them slightly to the right and struck a dramatic pose with his arm reaching to the heavens. Jesse giggled and clapped. Yumyulack was distracted by the obvious romantic tension between the two adults. 

_ In other words... please be true.  _

Syncopated brass hits embellished the lyrics. Terry’s heart overflowed with joy. Korvo was finally smiling—reluctantly but surely. He finally found the spark of life behind Korvo’s eyes he had been vying for, a certain look that told Terry that he was thriving, not just surviving. 

_ In other words… I love you.  _

Terry dipped Korvo. The ecstatic burst of the brass section roared out with a refrain of the melody in the instrumental section. The theremin played a counter-melody under it. Korvo’s face was hot. Terry’s face was so close to him— _ kissing distance _ -close. He felt like a wendigo caught in the headlights under Terry’s gaze, focused right on him and only him. 

A sudden high-pitched squeal of radio interference cut into the instrumental section. It led into a dark hum of static, with occasional crackles. The loud cacophony shocked Terry into dropping Korvo right on the floor. 

“... _shapeshifter…_ ” It was the same distress signal from before, but this time, the words were crisply articulated and distinct. The audio quality was undeniably crystal clear. “ _I repeat, we’ve been taken over by a—_ ” 

Korvo scrambled to shut the radio off. He threw it on the floor and aggressively stomped and jumped on it. He knew messing with the radio was a bad idea, he  _ knew  _ it. 

“That was  _ definitely  _ a distress signal,” Yumyulack said. 

“No!” Korvo exclaimed. “Th-That was—alien songs are weird. Totally unpredictable. You can never know what’s next.” 

“They just said something about a shapeshifter,” Jesse pointed out. 

“Nope, that’s just a part of the song,” Terry said. “Love is like a shapeshifter—you’ve never heard that expression before? Because that’s a totally common expression that I’ve heard many times before.” 

Yumyulack rolled his eyes. “Ugh. We’re not little kids. We can handle the truth.” 

“Are you kidding?” Terry said. “You guys are like, half our heights. You’re like, all cute and small and stuff.”

“We already finished the calculus series,” Jesse said. 

“O-Oh yeah? What’s the integral of 4x to the sixth power minus 2x cubed plus 7x minus 4dx?” Korvo tested. 

Yumyulack and Jesse recited the anwer together: “ _ Four-sevenths x to the seventh power minus one-half x to the fourth power plus seven-halves x-squared minus 4x plus c. _ ”

“Dammit!” Korvo cursed. 

“Hey, don’t fucking swear in front of the replicants!” Terry yelled. “Calculus doesn’t mean anything! They’re still innocent—they still don’t know what sex is, yet!” 

“Yes we do,” Jesse said. 

“Wait, what?” Yumyulack asked. “We reproduce asexually. We don’t have sex… do we?” 

Yumyulack didn’t get a response. 

“ _ Do we? _ ” he repeated. 

Korvo and Terry answered no and yes at the same time. Yumyulack was still confused. 

“It doesn’t matter!” Korvo said. “No one is having sex on this ship!” 

“Not with that attitude,” Terry mumbled. 

“Shut up! Everyone—j-just sit in your seats and stare into, uh, th-the space in silence. No more sex talk, no more music, and no more dancing. That’s an order!” Korvo declared, once and for all. 

“Aw man, those are my three favorite things,” Terry lamented. 

“Shut up and stare into space!” 

* * *

Korvo set their coordinates for the nearest populated planet outside of the Galactic Federation’s empire, a blue planet named after dirt. It was the planet the radio picked up the song he and Terry were dancing to before Korvo smashed the radio to bits. The bioscan didn’t detect any other life forms within a hundred mile radius, but the replicants were right, that was a distress signal they heard twice and it was closeby. The radio could only detect distress signals within a five mile radius. Wherever the ship that sent the distress signal was, it had a cloaking device that evaded their sensors. Korvo could only hope the shapeshifter’s taste for flesh was already sated. 

He didn’t flinch when an alarm chirped deafeningly. Every grating beep came with a pulse of red light flooding the room. A red exclamation mark with a notification that the ship had been breached popped up on a holographic screen. The bioscan detected an extra life form at the Southeast corridor. 

Jesse gasped. “It’s the shapeshifter!” 

Korvo typed in a command in the terminal to override the breach alert. “There’s no such thing as shapeshifters. Such a creature’s DNA would be too, t-too unstable and that’s a five-star recipe for cancer.” That was assuming the shapeshifter abided by Shlorpian biological limitations, though. There was no telling what atrocities a cosmic horror was capable of. “It’s probably just a, uh, just a false alarm. I’ll check on it.” 

Terry stood up from his seat. “No, I’ll go.” He took the ray gun out of the glove compartment. “You stay here and keep an eye on things, okay?” 

“You don’t have to—”

“—But I’m going to, anyway,” Terry said. 

Korvo couldn’t compete with Terry’s confidence. Not with that stupid, self-assured smirk that sold lies like chocolate bars. Korvo may have passed the proper exams to qualify for team leader, but Terry was born a leader. Korvo earned it, but Terry deserved it. Korvo had to yield. 

He looked Terry in the eyes and prayed, to whatever space deities they were nearest, that it wouldn’t be for the last time. “Just…” His voice broke. ”B-Be careful, alright?” Korvo blinked back tears. “That’s an order.” 

Terry gave him a few sympathetic pats on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. It’s probably just a false alarm, right?” 

“Right...” The ship had security cameras. Surely, Korvo could monitor Terry remotely and yell out into the ship’s intercom if he were in any danger. “Just a false alarm.” 

Terry secured the door behind him with a pin code. Korvo got onto the ship controls and opened the security camera footage. He knew letting the replicants watch Terry get mauled to death by an alien shapeshifter was selfish, but he was desperate to see the last few glimpses of Terry. He thought that maybe in the sudden flare-up of neural activity before death, if he thought of Terry deeply enough, his dying brain would first succumb to the saccharine fantasy of abandoning the mission to live a peaceful life with Terry and he would leave the physical realm less reluctantly. 

Korvo watched Terry tread down the main hallway with the ray gun ready to shoot. At every blind spot, his heart rate quickened. The replicants watched on from over Korvo’s shoulder in silence, as if even a whisper could jeopardize Terry’s survival. 

The security channels went offline as soon as Terry disappeared at the blind spot after the Southeast checkpoint, screaming salt-and-pepper static all over the screen. Korvo slammed his fist down on the control deck. Jesse and Yumyulack both flinched. 

“Dammit! I shouldn’t have let him go alone!” 

Korvo closed the window. All he could do now was wait. That’s all he was ever capable of—waiting for a suitable planet to pop up, waiting for his nightmares to end, and now waiting for his certain doom. He couldn’t seize the day like Terry. Korvo was stuck wondering how much happier he would have been if hadn’t broken into Terry’s locker the week before senior prom to retrieve his confession. He knew he would have been rejected, but at least for once in his life, he would have been speaking his truth. 

“We’re gonna die, aren’t we?” Yumyulack asked. 

There was that other “ _ we _ ” Korvo was a part of; it was him and the replicants. The young clones propagated off Terry’s fingertip and a chunk of Korvo’s rib. The legacy of Shlorp. The cocky little brats that thought themselves more mature than they really were. Korvo had to protect them until his last breath. No more waiting around. 

“You’re not going to die.” Korvo opened up the terminal and overrode the lock code securing the cockpit’s door. “You two are going to grow up on the new Shlorp, get good grades at school, get a well-paying job after graduation, and work every day until you grow old and become a big, beautiful tree.” He walked away from the replicants, towards the door. 

“But what about you, Korvo?” Jesse asked. “And Terry?” 

“Don’t worry about us,” Korvo told the replicants. “We’re the adults. We have everything under control.” 

As soon as the door slammed shut behind him, Korvo programmed in a special sequence that locked the door from both ends. Whoever or whatever wanted to reach the replicants would have to pry the thick steel door open by force. 

* * *

Korvo was headed towards the armory first, until he heard a loud shattering of glass beakers from the laboratory. He ran to the source of the noise. He was unarmed, didn’t stand a chance against a bloodthirsty alien monster, but all rationality flew out the window when it came to Terry. He could almost feel all of his action potentials in his body firing off, summoning as much energy from his anaerobic pathways as possible before fatigue could catch up. He turned a corner and, once he saw the familiar shine of a magenta teardrop gem catch his eye, almost tripped over himself rushing to Terry’s side. 

Amidst the glass shards on the white linoleum tiles, Terry was unconscious. Korvo collapsed down next to him and picked up his limp wrist. The heartbeat was faint, but still there. 

“Terry!” Korvo cried. Tears rolled down his face. “I-I-I’m s-so sorry, Terry. I was a coward.” He held Terry in his arms. “I’m a failure. I-I thought… I thought as long as I went to school and got good grades and colored within the lines, everything would be fine. I’m no team leader. I’ve always been a follower, and the person I wanted to follow was… you.” He broke down into loud sobs that wracked his body. Terry would be gone soon, and it was all his fault. “And I never even got to tell you that I lo—” 

Korvo was interrupted by someone behind him clearing his throat. It was Terry, the real one, holding a ray gun. 

“Uh, Korvo? That’s not me.” 

The lookalike opened its eyes and clicked its tongue. “Way to ruin a moment.” 

The shapeshifter lunged at Terry. Terry raised his ray gun to shoot at it, but the shapeshifter was too fast. It knocked the ray gun out of Terry’s hands. Terry wrestled the shapeshifter to the ground. They rolled around, trying to pin each other down, but they were equally matched. Korvo lost track of which one was the imposter. 

Briefly, one of the Terrys got the upper hand and straddled the other Terry. “I hate to hit such a handsome face, but this ship isn’t big enough for the both of us!” He landed a few good punches before being headbutted by the other Terry. 

The other Terry tried to crawl over to the ray gun, but the other other Terry tackled his lookalike down just a few inches away from finally grabbing the hilt. While the two Terrys fought, Korvo quickly grabbed the ray gun and pointed it at them. They froze simultaneously. 

“Shoot him!” the Terry on the left yelled. He pointed at his doppleganger. “He’s the evil clone!” 

“Takes one to know one!” the Terry on the right retorted. 

“I know you are, but what am I?” the left Terry responded. 

Korvo’s hands trembled. He slowly backed away from both of them while shifting his aim between them. He scanned their features for any tells, but they were identical. Every idiosyncrasy—the tone of Terry’s voice, the curve of Terry’s frown, the length of every one of Terry’s slim fingers that Korvo dreamt of interlacing his own fingers with—was matched perfectly. What was worse was that Korvo had to deal with double the amount of stupid comebacks. 

“Sh-Shut up! Both of you!” Korvo tried to wrack his brain for any obvious questions that could tell the real Terry apart from the shapeshifter. That was when he realized he knew nothing about Terry’s personal life. “Um… Uh… G-Give me a reason why I should trust either of you.” 

“Because I love you!” the left Terry blurted out. “I’ve always loved you, Korvo. There’s nothing more real than my love for you. Look in my eyes, Korvo. Do you really think I’d ever do anything to hurt you?” 

Korvo blushed. “Th-That’s… I… Um…” 

“Oh, come on!” the Terry on the right cried out. “You’re not really going to believe that, are you?” 

Korvo pointed the ray gun at the Terry on the right. “W… Why shouldn’t I?” 

“He’s trying to use your crush on me against you,” Right Terry argued. “That’s obvious emotional manipulation. I would never try to use such a cheap trick against you, Korvo. You’re too smart for that.” 

Korvo pointed the ray gun at Left Terry. Then back to Right Terry. “W-What does the real Terry think of me?” 

“I think the world of you,” Left Terry answered. “I want to take care of you. I want to love you. I want to spend the rest of our lives together!” 

“No I don’t!” Right Terry protested. “I think you’re lame and boring and kind of a killjoy! You try and boss everyone around but you’re not in control of anything! And now you’re letting a shapeshifting alien manipulate you because you have self-esteem issues!”

“Don’t think of what’s real,” Left Terry said. “Think of what  _ you  _ want, Korvo. And whatever that is…” He put his hands up. “... I’ll accept it. I’ll accept whatever makes you happy because I only want the best for you.” 

Korvo shot at Left Terry. Multiple times. Inky black fluid, which seemed to be the shapeshifter’s blood, gushed out of its exit wounds and splattered over Korvo and Terry’s faces. He didn’t stop shooting, even when the fake Terry fell backwards onto the tiled floor, with its copy of Terry’s face frozen in a pained grimace. Even when the slight twitches of pain ceased and its pupils rolled into opposite directions and the black blood spilled into a dark, shiny pool around the corpse, Korvo continued shooting, panting heavily and releasing all his pent-up rage. He paused, briefly, to see if the alien would miraculously resurrect itself. Then, Korvo shot the shapeshifter one last time in between the eyes for good measure. 

“The real Terry knows I hate myself too much to choose what makes me happy!” Korvo declared triumphantly. 

“I sure do.” Terry gently took the ray gun away from Korvo. He looked down at his lookalike’s dead body and wondered how much it must have hurt to shoot down someone who loved you. Even if it was a lie, that fake Terry had professed his affection so wholeheartedly that the real Terry could have been fooled. Hearing himself say  _ I love you _ out loud to Korvo didn’t sound so bad. “Hey, Korvo…” 

Korvo wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “Y-Yeah?” 

“That shapeshifter wasn’t completely wrong.” 

“You don’t have to lie to me—” 

“—But I’m not,” Terry insisted. He took Korvo’s hands in his. Korvo’s hands were dirtied with speckles of black blood and sweaty and still shaking from the adrenaline rush, but he didn’t care. “Maybe I’m not madly in love with you or anything, but I do want you to be happy. I’ll say it again: let’s give up the mission.” 

Korvo interlaced his fingers with Terry’s. His hands were warm. Alive. He looked down at the fake Terry’s corpse and thought of how sick to his stomach he felt when he thought the real Terry was fading away from him. Korvo knew he had a duty to his species to resurrect the homeworld, but the mission felt trivial in comparison to Terry’s hands squeezing his own hands tight. Like a bad dream. And the heat of Terry’s touch was like the momentous shine of morning light, an ardent sun peeking from the horizon to declare a golden dawn. 

“We’ll make a rest stop on Earth,” Korvo decided. “We’ll restock our supplies, refuel, and stretch our legs for a little bit. Shouldn’t take too long.” 

Terry smiled. “Just a quick stop, right?” 

“Yeah. Just a quick stop.” 


End file.
